Claude Michel

(click to enlarge)
"Female Satyr Carrying Two Putti," terra-cotta statuette by Clodion; in the Walters Art … (credit: Courtesy of the Walters Art Gallery, Baltimore)

(born Dec. 20, 1738, Nancy, Fr. — died March 29, 1814, Paris) French sculptor. In 1755 he entered his uncle's workshop in Paris, and later he became a student of Jean-Baptiste Pigalle. In 1759 he won the grand prize at the Royal Academy and embarked on a successful career, first in Rome and then in Paris, where he exhibited regularly at the Salon. He excelled at small statuettes and terra-cotta figures of nymphs, satyrs, and groups. After the French Revolution he changed his style to suit the Neoclassical taste for monumentality; he worked on the Arc de Triomphe du Carrousel (1805 – 06) and the Vendôme Column (1806 – 09).

For more information on Clodion, visit Britannica.com.

(b Nancy, 20 Dec 1738; d Paris, 28 Mar 1814). French sculptor. He was the greatest master of lyrical small-scale sculpture active in France in the later 18th century, an age that witnessed the decline of the Rococo, the rise of Romanticism and the cataclysms of revolution. Clodion's works in terracotta embody a host of fascinating and still unresolved problems, questions of autograph and attribution, the chronology of his many undated designs, the artistic sources of his works, and the position of his lyric art in the radically changing society of his time. Little is known of the sculptural activity of Clodion's brothers (see 1992 exh. cat., nos 90-93): Sigisbert-Martial Michel (b 13 Jan 1727); Sigisbert-Fran?ois Michel (b Nancy, 24 Sep 1728; d Paris, 21 May 1811; see 1992 exh. cat., p. 29, nos 11 and 12); Nicholas Michel (b 17 Nov 1733); and Pierre-Joseph Michel (b 2 Nov 1737).

See the Abbreviations for further details.

The French sculptor Clodion (1738-1814) is best known for small terra-cotta groups in the rococo style, depicting nymphs and fauns in an erotic and playful manner.

Clodion, whose real name was Claude Michel, was born in Nancy on Dec. 20, 1738, into a family of sculptors. He studied with his uncle, Lambert Sigisbert Adam, a prominent sculptor whose work was significant in transforming the vigorous and dynamic baroque style into the more delicate rococo. Clodion also worked with the famous rococo sculptor Jean Baptiste Pigalle. In 1759 the Royal Academy awarded Clodion the Grand Prize for Sculpture, and he was in Rome between 1762 and 1771. In 1773 he became a member of the academy. He created his most important works during the 1770s and 1780s.

Clodion possessed great technical virtuosity and executed many types of sculpture in a variety of media. During the 1770s he completed two important commissions for the Cathedral of Rouen: the marble St. Cecilia and the bronze Crucified Christ. In 1779 the royal government commissioned him to produce a monumental statue of the Baron de Montesquieu, one of the leading philosophers of the Enlightenment. This marble statue shows the subject seated in a chair and wearing an impressive judge's robe. It is in no way formal or solemn, however, but is a sprightly and vibrant image of one of the most clever intellectuals of the time.

Clodion is most noted for small, intimate terra-cotta sculptures or statuettes of nymphs, fauns, satyrs, and bacchantes, mythological creatures symbolic of erotic pleasure. Such works as the Intoxication of Wine (Nymph and Satyr) and Seated Bacchante Playing with a Child are typical examples and are wholly within the decorative rococo traditions of 18th-century art. These graceful productions convey a mood of exuberant gaiety and depend for their effect upon a delicate play of highly refined textures; the soft medium of terra-cotta allowed Clodion to exploit fully and sensually the contrasting textural values of flesh, hair, fabric, fur, and foliage.

As early as the 1760s, the rococo style was under attack as frivolous and trivial, and during the last half of the century it was gradually replaced by a return to the relative severity of the art of antiquity. Clodion, however, was unaffected by the encroaching neoclassicism, and his statuettes remained popular until the French Revolution. During the Revolutionary and Napoleonic periods neoclassicism triumphed in the arts, and in his later works, such as the reliefs (1806) for the Arc du Carrousel in Paris, Clodion finally accepted the new style. He died in Paris on March 28, 1814.

Further Reading

The most important works on Clodion are in French. General background studies in English include Lady Emilia Francis Dilke, French Architects and Sculptors of the 18th Century (1900); Chandler R. Post, A History of European and American Sculpture, vol. 2 (1921); Germain Bazin, History of Western Sculpture (trans. 1968); and Herbert Keutner, Sculpture: Renaissance to Rococo (trans. 1969).

'Faun Family', terracotta relief by Claude Michel, c. 1785, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D. C.

'Poetry and Music', marble sculpture by Claude Michel, 1774-1778, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D. C.

Claude Michel (December 20, 1738 – March 29, 1814), known as Clodion, was a French sculptor in the Rococo style. He was born in Nancy. Here and probably in Lille he spent the earlier years of his life. In 1755 he came to Paris and entered the workshop of Lambert Sigisbert Adam, his maternal uncle, a clever sculptor. He remained four years in this workshop, and on the death of his uncle became a pupil of J. B. Pigalle. In 1759 he obtained the grand prize for sculpture at the Academic Royale; in 1761 he obtained the first silver medal for studies from models; and in 1762 he went to Rome. Here his activity was considerable between 1767 and 1771.

Catherine II was eager to secure his presence in St Petersburg, but he returned to Paris. Among his patrons, which were very numerous, were the chapter of Rouen, the states of Languedoc, and the Direction generale. His works were frequently exhibited at the Salon. In 1782 he married Catherine Flore, a daughter of the sculptor Augustin Pajou, who subsequently obtained a divorce from him. The agitation caused by the Revolution drove Clodion in 1792 to Nancy, where he remained until 1798, his energies being spent in the decoration of houses.

Among Clodion's works are a statue of Montesquieu, a Dying Cleopatra, and a chimneypiece at present in the South Kensington Museum. One of his last groups represented Homer as a beggar being driven away by fishermen (1810). Clodion died in Paris, on the eve of the invasion of Paris by the forces of the Sixth Coalition.

Among the public collections holding works by Claude Michel are the Art Institute of Chicago, the Bowes Museum (County Durham, UK), the Carnegie Museum of Art (Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania), the Cleveland Museum of Art, the Courtauld Institute of Art (London), the Currier Museum of Art (New Hampshire), the Detroit Institute of Arts the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, the Frick Collection (New York City), the Getty Museum (Los Angeles), the Honolulu Academy of Arts, the Kimbell Art Museum (Fort Worth, Texas), Kunst Indeks Danmark, the Louvre, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Musée Cognacq-Jay (Paris), the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Musée des Beaux-Arts (Bordeaux), National Museum of Art (Cluj-Napoca), the National Gallery of Armenia, the National Gallery of Art (Washington D.C.), the Norton Simon Museum (Pasadena, California) and the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

References

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Clodion

• This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica, Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.

External links

• Entry and examples at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City

This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer)